Sacrifice

stopped the degeneration, and Taun We would have turned that research over to her new bosses at Arkanian Micro. That was a bad deal for the clone, and a bad deal for Fett, because if anyone was going to make credits out of that data, it was him, and Mandalore needed those—

Well, there's a funny thing. Now I'm thinking long-term.

Beviin turned around and started walking again in silence. Fett's news had certainly taken the shine off whatever had made him so happy a little earlier.

The farm was a rambling collection of buildings scattered around a stone farmhouse with impressive dirtworks and defensive walls. The other structures—including the outbuilding that Fett was staying in—weren't so well defended, just variations on the traditional circular vheh'yaime set in deep pits and so thickly thatched that they were camouflaged. But the farmhouse was the last bastion in the event of an attack.

At the back of the building, and connected to it by an underground tunnel, stood a workshop with a smithy. Fett could hear the rhythmic hammering of metal across the clearing. There was no smoke curling from the roof. It vented many meters away to hide the location, and Fett was sure there was a network of tunnels extending a long way into the hills to the west of the farm. It was one of the ways the Mandalorians had fought—and beaten —the Yuuzhan Vong.

Beviin walked down the steps cut into the hard-packed soil and leading down to the front door. It opened and Dinua, his adopted daughter, stood with hands on hips.

"Boots," she said ominously, pointing at the clods of dung and mud.

Two small children clung to her legs. "You too, Mand'alor. And you can take those coveralls off as well, Buir."

"Okay, okay" Beviin—spy, fixer, veteran commando—was driven back by a resolute woman. But Dinua had fought and lulled Yuuzhan Vong from the